OSNews sat down with Ian Seyler, the Founder and Lead Programmer at Return Infinity, the maker and sponsor of Baremetal OS, a 64-bit OS for x86-64 based computers written entirely in Assembly. Editor's note: We'd love to do similar interviews with the people behind other alternative or hobby OS projects. If there's a project that you'd like to learn more about, let us know.

Forth is fast. High-level Forth executes as fast as other high-level languages and between 20 to 75% slower than equivalent assembly-language programs, while time-critical code may be written in assembler to run at full processor speed. Without a traditional operating system, Forth eliminates redundancy and needless run-time error checking.

Forth compiled code is compact. Forth applications require less memory than their equivalent assembly-language programs and consume less power (important for hand-helds and portable gadgets!) Written in Forth, the entire operating system and its standard word set reside in less than 8K bytes. Support for a target application may require less than 1K bytes.

Forth is transportable. It has been implemented on just about every mini- and microcomputer known to the industry. Most microcontrollers and DSPs, even tiny ones, also have a Forth implementation.

Forth has been known to cut program development time by a factor of ten for equivalent assembly-language programming and by a factor of two for equivalent high-level programming in C or Java. Productivity increases because Forth epitomizes "structured programming" and because it is interactive and modular.

The biggest sense in using Forth is using it "standalone" - I mean: with NO control of any underlying "external" OS.

Oh, I forgot: http://www.openfirmware.info/Open_Firmware - here you are: "easily portable OS or kernel written in Forth; Forth suitable for writing an OS kernel for x86/x86-64 hardware" - everything you requested in just one software package.